The moving deck is one of several public realm strategies that the firm is promoting for the 100-year-old station, following an invitation from the Municipal Art Society of New York to re-think the spaces in and around the building.

SOM suggests that the hovering deck would improve the quality of the public space around the building by offering an "iconic landmark" with a 360-degree panorama of the city skyline.

"Throughout the history of New York City, urban growth has been matched by grand civic gestures," said SOM partner Roger Duffy.

The doughnut-shaped structure would be attached to the sides of two new office towers, which would fit in with the current rezoning proposals of the New York City planning department, designating it as a commercial area.

The plans also include new pedestrian routes to help ease congestion, as well as a series of public spaces that are privately owned and managed.

Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) presented its vision for "Grand Central’s Next 100" at the Municipal Art Society of New York’s third annual Summit for New York City. Led by partners Roger Duffy, FAIA, and T.J. Gottesdiener, FAIA, SOM’s design transforms the public spaces around Grand Central Terminal, creating new pedestrian corridors for increased circulation and visualizing innovative options for new public amenities.

The Municipal Art Society (MAS) challenged SOM to re-think the public spaces in and around Grand Central Terminal in celebration of the landmark’s centennial. The design challenge coincides with a rezoning proposal from the New York City Department of City Planning, which, if approved, would allow the development of new office towers in the area around Grand Central, thereby increasing the density around the station exponentially.

The proposed zoning would also require developers to donate to a fund that would make improvements to the infrastructure in the area, including additional access points to the subway platforms and a pedestrian mall on Vanderbilt Avenue. Along with Foster + Partners and WXY Architecture + Urban Design, SOM was one of three architecture firms invited by MAS to present ideas about the future of Grand Central Terminal’s public realm.

SOM’s vision proposes three solutions, all of which provide improvements – both quantitative and qualitative – to the quality of public space around the station. The first solution alleviates pedestrian congestion at street level by restructuring Privately Owned Public Spaces (POPS) to create pedestrian corridors through multiple city blocks, connecting Grand Central to nearby urban attractors.

The second is a condensing of the public realm through the creation of additional levels of public space that exist both above and below the existing spaces. These new strata would be funded privately but under public ownership - Privately Funded Public Space (PFPS).

The third proposal creates an active, 24-hour precinct around Grand Central Terminal in the form of an iconic circular pedestrian observation deck, suspended above Grand Central, which reveals a full, 360-degree panorama of the city. This grand public space moves vertically, bringing people from the cornice of Grand Central to the pinnacle of New York City’s skyline. It is a gesture at the scale of the city that acts both as a spectacular experience as well as an iconic landmark and a symbol of a 21st-century New York City.

I’m tempted to do Skidmore gOatse and Merril but I don’t think Dezeen would publish it.

This is awful – completely insensitive to the context. Grand Central Station is an icon of New York and this turns it into a fairground attraction. It also completely diminishes its sense of scale. Then there’s the whole “halo” symbolism.

Reid

I approve of that photoshop.

NgocNguyen

The circular floating observation deck will reach the highest pinnacle of mechanical technology. Like it very much.

Peter

Hilarious. Love those Mordor and Stargate mockups :D

SSSO

Pie in the sky has never been taken so seriously.

James

I hope this isn't taken seriously. Gross.

sor perdida

The bigger SOM’s reputation, the stupider its “conceptual” strife. Is this what corporate “brainstorming” is able to fart out? This is an utter lack of urban sensitivity and contextual understanding.

Dave

Flushing Meadows World’s Fair transplant?

Pyotor

No! The risk of its damaging this NY icon during catastrophe is far, far greater than the nice experience you get from this suspended structure.

This will never happen. Where would they get the money? And what NY politician in his/her right mind would endorse or approve such folly?

hey

Please think about it after 100 years. Not tomorrow.

Pyotor

100 or 1000 years… still a no. I think that an iconic building owns all the space above it.

Zaedrus

If you drop Jodie Foster through the middle, she will travel through a wormhole and you can record two minutes of static.

adam

No, we should have sent a poet.

bfd

I can’t think of any reason why. No really, why would you do something like that? Yech.

jez

Honestly I don’t see whats so bad about this idea. It would be a huge technological and engineering achievement. I think NY needs more wild innovative ideas like this again. It’s part of what made the city so great at the beginning of the last century.

Some of you are too cynical in my opinion, if this were to ever get built it would add a lot to that area.

Corb

I guess SOM will do anything to validate building more hack towers.

Jim

It’s true… it’s all OVER.

Mattowski

Errm the concept of a circular orifice sliding down a building – suggesting the building is a phallus probably isn’t the most ideal design concept I’ve seen.

Desecrating such an old and respectable building requires the designers to be taken to one side and given time to think what they’ve done. Whatever happened to the values of “fit for purpose” and “form and function”.

George

Imagine constructing this above the Eiffel Tower, Empire State, or Chrysler. That would be interesting.

Stephen O’ Farrell

Donutty.

jim t.

I wonder what kind of reaction this would have produced if Bjarke had proposed something like this?

schan

Reminds me of a scene in an animated movie. I think it was Megamind.

sultony

Did you know that lifts have a habit of breaking down? Who on earth is going to flirt with death and go on this thing? What an extravagant way of entertaining people. Now if it flipped over and spun round so that people felt they were in a fair ride there would be some point.

.TIFF

Oh good, SOM designed a giant glory hole for Godzilla that slides up and down.

mksh

Such a comfortable thought to know in the end – as such – this will never be constructed.

pascal t.

I think they have never heard about statics. That happens when some universities are educating only cosmeticians. Furthermore, there are better examples existing for saving spaces in the big cities. Have a look at ” parasitic architecture”.

http://twitter.com/escmikey @escmikey

I heard this was inspired by Independence Day. What does that tell you?